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“Well, in my case, it matters to me,” said the mouse.
“I won’t kill you as long as you don’t scurry under my boots.”
The mouse made a flying leap and landed on Vadeshex, whose hand flashed out, catching the mouse between his fingers. Vadeshex crushed its head and popped the mouse’s corpse into his mouth.
Rigg almost puked on the spot.
“I can process any animal or vegetable matter,” said Vadeshex, “and I didn’t want the corpse cluttering up the corridor.”
“Why did you kill it?” asked Rigg.
“Because he was causing problems with his lies,” said Vadeshex.
“Or else he was causing problems by telling me a truth I wasn’t supposed to know,” said Rigg.
“One of those,” said Vadeshex.
“Wake me when they get here,” said Ram Odin. “And don’t eat any more mice in front of Rigg. He’s more squeamish than you think.”
“I was raised by one of these machines,” said Rigg. “I still think of them as people, even though I know better.”
“Poor Rigg,” said Vadeshex. “Try to sleep.”
Rigg held back any kind of retort, mostly because he couldn’t decide on which of them he should use. He went into his cabin and stripped off his clothes, shaking out the mice. “All of you get out of this room and don’t come back in without an invitation.”
The mice scurried out the door. The facemask assured him that they were all gone. Rigg lay down on the cot. “I want to sleep,” he said aloud to the facemask.
The facemask always understood, whether Rigg framed the request in words or not. Moments after Rigg lay down, the facemask dropped him into unconsciousness.
It was the ship’s voice that woke him, not Vadeshex, which was fine with Rigg. The facemask had him alert in a moment, with no residual grogginess. Rigg pulled on his clothes and went down the now-empty corridors to the open area where everyone was gathering. Param, Ram Odin, Umbo, Loaf, Leaky, Square, Olivenko, Vadeshex, Ramex, and a few hundred mice.
“Are we waiting for anyone else?” asked Ram Odin.
“Just Noxon and Deborah Wheaton,” said Vadeshex. “And here they are.”
Noxon came into the room, accompanied by a girl who wore a thick band across her eyes. It was obvious by the way she moved that she wasn’t blind at all.
“Hi,” said Noxon. “We did it. Or, well, another copy of me did it, along with Ram Odin and her father, Professor Wheaton.”
“How?” asked Param. “What did they do?”
“Deborah and I saw them off in the starship. They left a couple of hundred thousand years before the aliens came, and when we hopped back to that time, the aliens didn’t come after all, so I assume they succeeded. I have no idea how.”
“She’s not really blind,” said Loaf.
“She has no eyes,” said Noxon.
Deborah tapped the band over her eyes. “It’s a machine,” she said. “Not as advanced as their visual units.” She indicated Vadeshex and Ramex.
“We waited until the Visitors came back from Garden,” said Rigg. “In the original version of history, the Destroyers had already wiped out human life on Earth before they got home. We sliced our way a few dozen years, just to be sure the Destroyers never came.”
“The expedition you call ‘the Visitors’ gave a very favorable report,” said Deborah. “They recommended that this world be left completely alone to go on developing without interference.”
“And the government made that official policy,” said Noxon. “Doesn’t mean it’ll stay the policy, but it’s a good sign. They stuck with it for a dozen years or so. Then we popped back, got on the Visitors’ outbound ship, and sliced our way through their whole voyage.”
“They never knew you were on the ship?” asked Umbo.
Noxon gave him a withering look. “Give me credit,” he said.
